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Senate approves UW System staff unionization

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by Beth Mueller

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

State legislators passed a bill Tuesday that would allow faculty and staff from the University of Wisconsin System to form unions and bargain collectively, and to do so in any grouping they wish.

The Senate bill passed on a 21-10 vote. If enacted, it would enable collective bargaining on issues like compensation and conditions of employment, but it would not allow negotiation on academic freedom, the mission and goals of the Board of Regents or diminishing the right of tenure to faculty.

Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, sponsored the bill, saying it would bring UW in line with its peers and that a majority of states in the nation allow their universities’ faculty to form unions.

“I feel the right to form a union is a fundamental human right and furthermore a fundamental civil right,” Hansen said.

Hansen stressed the legislation would only permit, not force, faculty members to form unions and collectively bargain.

He added Wisconsin is one of only four states that allows faculty at its technical colleges to form unions but not its university faculty.

In the bill, collective bargaining units are separated for faculty at each UW System campus and academic staff at each campus, but if employees vote to do so, two or more units may combine. According to UW System spokesperson Dave Giroux, that means it is hard to say what the final effects of the bill would look like.

“It could play out in a number of different ways because of the way the law allows for different groups to choose whether or not to seek representation,” Giroux said. “On one extreme, you could have none of those groups vote to unionize, and on the other you could have plenty of them do so.”

Despite its Senate success, the legislation is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Assembly with the session quickly winding down.

Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, chairs the Colleges and Universities Committee where the bill currently sits on the Assembly side.

Nass does not support the bill in its current form, according to his spokesperson Mike Mikalsen, in large part because it would prohibit academic freedom and tenure from inclusion in the bargaining.

“Rep. Nass has serious reservations that you’re going to exempt out two of the most important issues,” Mikalsen said. “If you’re serious about collective bargaining, all things have to be on the table — there has to be a give and a take, and in the current form of the bill, that would not be the case.”

Hansen, however, said tenure and academic freedom are “just principles we’re not going to compromise.”

“It’s a shame he won’t focus on the real issue here, which is allowing them to unionize,” Hansen said.

Giroux said the UW System’s position on the legislation mirrors its stance in the past.

“We as a system, as management, should remain neutral on this,” he said. “Ours is an incredibly well-educated, well-informed workforce. Our professors and our academic staff are fully capable of determining if this is a right they want to fight for.”

Calls to various members of the Faculty Senate and its public interest group were not returned as of press time.

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